


rock

by rubyrobotic



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Assisted Suicide, Depression, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Eating Disorders, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Sad Parental Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Self-Destruction, Shapeshifter Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade & Phil Watson Friendship (Video Blogging RPF), Wing Grooming, Winged Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), and also some irl stuff that happened that i projected onto this fic, better safe than sorry yknow, but i was editing n theres a bit that can be seen as implying it happened, im coming to terms with canon okay, it is not canon it did not happen in this fic, not graphic but referenced and heavily implied, self harm through neglect, techno is not phils son tommy adopted phil before phil adopted him etc etc, this has the canon relationships.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:48:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29564952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubyrobotic/pseuds/rubyrobotic
Summary: Phil is the rock of his family, so it is very important that no one see him cry.Or, Phil copes with trauma in his own way.
Relationships: Phil Watson & TOmmyinnit (mentioned), Phil Watson & Technoblade - Relationship, Phil Watson & Wilbur Soot (mentioned)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 163





	rock

**Author's Note:**

> this is a melancholy, bittersweet fic that deals with phil's trauma revolving around his time on the dream smp. coping with canon and my own mental illness. block men really do provide the serotonins. 
> 
> there is graphic description of wilbur's canon assisted suicide and how it affects phil, because suicidal actions are traumatizing for everyone involved. especially when it ends in an assisted suicide.   
> regarding the sexual assault tag, i want to reiterate that NOTHING HAPPENED. there's just a paragraph that could be interpreted as witnessing some of the physical aftereffects of a sexual assault and i caught it while editing. better safe than sorry, i don't want to trigger anyone on accident.   
> the self harm is graphic but it isn't violent or gory. it's melancholy in the same way the rest of the fic is.

Phil is the rock of his family. He's the calming presence of the tumultuous group that call him father -- or, in Techno's case, his closest friend. He quells their anxieties, he chases away their nightmares, he anchors them in their panic. Phil is the rock of his family, so it is very important that no one see him cry. 

He stares at himself in the mirror. A stranger stares back. He has bags under his eyes, darker than the stress of hardcore or the intensity of the Antarctic Empire ever colored them. His hair is greasy, clumping into stringy, wet-looking bunches, like damp straw atop his head. His skin is oily, pores clogged and the stubborn patch of acne that never left his cheekbones flaring up. His beard has grown long past his preferred stubble, a much more apparent fuzz on his chin and jawline. 

Phil looks tired. He looks bone-tired, exhausted beyond all belief, and he feels it. The slump of his shoulders is a pitiful slouch. Try as he might, his smile is more of a grimace, failing to reach his eyes and deepen his crow's feet like it used to. His collarbones jut out farther than he remembers, sharp as knives on his ashen skin. Has he been eating? He swears he has. Phil knows he loses his appetite when he's stressed, but he didn't think it was this bad. No wonder Techno has been forcing stew and soup and broth on him at every chance. 

He picks up his comb. His hands shake. Phil runs a thumb over the tiny gems set into the shaft. They still shimmer, but it's been ages since he polished the stones. Small scratches litter the softer gems, and even more dents and divots marr the gold sculpting. Two of the ivory teeth are broken off, but it still detangles his hair just fine. 

Its twin rests on his dresser, amongst other mementos. Once upon a time, he'd given it to Wilbur, a parting gift when his ~~only~~ _eldest_ son had left his childhood home. The day had been tearful but joyous as his baby bird flew from the nest, leaving to make his own way in the world. More scratches and dents scar the delicate metalwork, some of the gemstones cracked or fragmented in their slots, some gone completely. Many of the teeth are gone or half broken. Soot and scorch marks still stain its surface. 

The memory of his eldest son smells of gunpowder and smoke. His wings twitch beneath his winter kimono, burn scars itching. Phil pulls the comb through his hair. He winces when it pulls on the tangles, but doesn't bother to be any more gentle. The less time he spends staring at the bathroom mirror, the better. His eyes are blue, his hair is blond, but Wilbur has his nose and his cheeks and his jaw. He sees his son staring back at him from the mirror. 

Wilbur's eyes fill his memory, burning bright behind his eyelids. Smoke fills his lungs and he tastes ash on his tongue. Wilbur's voice echoes in his head, desperate pleas bouncing around his skull. Phil is not fazed by much, but he'd never imagined himself talking his son down from suicide. 

He'd never imagined himself failing. He remembers how happy Wilbur had been when Phil had caved, shaken by the loss of L'Manburg and the searing pain in his wings. How relieved tears had spilled forth as blood gushed from around the sword in his chest, staining his sweater and slicking the leather of his trenchcoat. Phil remembers how hot and sticky that blood had been on his hands, as he'd embraced Wilbur, held him in his final moments and begged for forgiveness. 

Phil blinks. He shakes the memory from his head, but the ash does not leave his tongue. His eyes are watering. His hair is mostly detangled. He blames the tears on having tugged his own hair too hard while combing it. The clumps of hair littering the sink attest to how hard he'd pulled. Phil wonders if he's got any bald patches now, because it's a lot of hair and how is he going to hide it from Techno? He doesn't wear his hat while he sleeps. 

He can figure it out later, he supposes. Phil sets the comb down on the counter. He grabs what hair he can from the sink and drops it into the little rubbish bin next to the counter. Maybe Techno will shave soon and he won't have to worry about his own blond strands being found amongst the mass of pink fuzz that Techno sheds every time he trims his facial hair. 

His washcloth is hanging on a little hook he'd put on the wall. Phil hasn't any soap, not for his face, but even a quick rinse will do wonders for his skin. He's growing tired of the constant itch of acne and he's due for some kind of hygiene routine anyways. Phil wets the cloth with cold snowmelt and begins wiping oil and dirt from his face. 

Blue eyes haunt him. His youngest son stares back at him from the mirror. Tommy isn't even a blood relation, but they share the same ring of blue around their pupils. Phil looks away from himself. Tommy hadn't been his son very long at all. Wilbur had adopted the teen long before Phil had arrived to the Dream SMP, and long after SMP Earth had parted ways. But, as Wilbur's adopted brother, Tommy had been his son. His boy. His chaotic sixteen-year-old son who shouted and swore and got attached to Phil through letters alone. 

He hadn't known. Phil hadn't known anything until it was far too late to fix it. He'd traveled to L'Manburg the second Wilbur's letters had begun to include shaky admissions of going hungry to feed Tommy, of Techno's alliance, had begun to show the slope Wilbur was beginning to slide down. And he'd arrived just in time to participate in an assisted suicide. Tommy's exile had been the same way, and Phil regretted letting anything get as bad as it had. 

He hadn't _known_ , hadn't seen the extent of the abuse Tommy suffered. Phil had believed Dream when the man had said Tommy stopped writing because of a childish tantrum, the best equivalent to the silent treatment Tommy could give through letters. Phil had given him space, just like he had Wilbur so many years prior. What a mistake that had been. He'd only realized when Tommy had broken a potion bottle and spilled the shimmering liquid. Before Phil could get a word out to ask if he was okay, Tommy was apologizing and stripping off his armour, dropping his chestplate and tools in a pile. Phil had to physically restrain him from shucking his clothes as well when Tommy had started unbuttoning his coat and trying to kick his boots off. 

He'd never asked about the lines that littered Tommy's arms and hips. He didn't question the still-fading bruises and the fucking bite mark on Tommy's shoulder. Phil put together his own conclusion. It wasn't hard. He knew the second he saw them. 

Despite his best efforts, Tommy had betrayed them. Phil had seen the conflict, the internal battle in Tommy's eyes each time he'd shown him kindness, had gently strapped his armor back on and handed his pickaxe and sword back to him. He'd seen the trust for his father and the crippling fear of authority fight each time Tommy had interacted with Phil, and it had broken his heart. He'd been disappointed, yes, when Tommy sided with L'Manburg and not the newly-forming Syndicate, but not surprised. Tommy held a measure of power with L'Manburg that no one in the Syndicate could grant him. 

Phil reaches out to wipe the tears from Tommy's face. His fingers clank against the mirror. He'd never realized just how much his youngest son resembled him. Tommy's jaw is softer, his cheeks rounder, but he has the same bump in his nose, the same hard-set brow. Phil wipes the tears from his face with his sleeve, not caring how the moisture will wrinkle the silk. He tosses the washcloth in the sink and leaves the bathroom. 

He lays on his side in bed, facing the wall. Explosions ring in his ears as he pulls his kimono tighter, feeling it tug against his wings. The dirty half-molted feathers catch on the silk, and he feels pin feathers poke at the fabric. He doesn't preen them anymore, hasn't since Wilbur's death. He isn't supposed to molt until early summer. It's late January. Techno will recognise a stress-induced molt if he sees Phil's wings. 

Before, in SMP Earth and the times between servers and in his own private worlds, where flying was allowed and encouraged, he'd preened. His wings were beautiful things, iridescent and dark as the night sky. They shimmered in the light and they were his greatest source of pride, something no one could take from him. He preened nightly and kept the discarded feathers. Down made lovely stuffing for pillows and flight feathers lined a cloak that he no longer has. Once, during an especially ill-timed molt, down feathers had lined a coat to keep out the polar chill. 

Here, his wings are filthy, sooty, burnt and battered from shielding Wilbur in L'Manburg. He snorts at the irony -- he'd lost as much of himself as Wilbur had, that day. And he hadn't even managed to save his son. How poetic. How tragic. He prays he won't outlive both his children. 

Phil thinks Techno knows something is wrong. Techno is not his son, the two were caught in the weird place between father-son and brother-brother. Still, the bond they share is unbreakable, and Phil hopes that Dream's world will not tear them apart, too. Techno had described them as cousins, once, drunk on homemade moonshine and victory, reeling in the aftermath of world domination. Phil was never close to his cousins, even before his Angel of Death bit. But he knows piglin relationships are different, has seen a bastion in its prime courtesy of Techno, and thinks that if cousins are like the piglins that sleep in a tangle of limbs and share so much of their life with the ones they consider family, blood relations be damned, then he is _honoured_ to be Technoblade's cousin. 

Phil had also been drunk off moonshine and high on victory, and had described the relationship as "what happens when the vasectomy fails ten years after the last kid was born." They'd spent the night laughing, using increasingly more obscure terms to describe their bond. Pink and green, mutually unrequited love, the mismatched socks that became a pair because the other sock was never found. The Blood G-d and the Angel of Death. 

Techno comes into his room. 

... _Their_ room, actually. He and Techno share it. The cabin is small, but the room is big enough for two twin beds and two brothers-in-arms. Phil stares at the wall. Techno stares at him. He must look like hell, because the last time Techno stared at him this long was when they first met after the first destruction of L'Manburg. His wing twitches. 

"Your kimono is filthy," Techno says. On the surface it reads like an insult. Phil knows Techno far too well for that. 

"I didn't have the energy to shower," he says, trying to ease Techno's concern. "I'll do it tomorrow." 

Techno's hand is a comforting weight on his shoulder. "Let me wash it for you." 

"It can wait a night." 

Techno drops a feather onto the pillow next to Phil's head. "It's January. You're molting." 

The "you molt in summer" is left unsaid. Phil's got no choice but to be vulnerable, right now. Clamming up will only worry Techno more. 

He rolls onto his back and sits up. The kimono slips from his shoulders. Techno doesn't make a sound as Phil slowly stretches his wings, fluffing out his decimated feathers and sucking in a breath as his muscles cramp from having spent so long folded under his kimono. He must be in a sorry state. He keeps his eyes on his hands, doesn't look at his feathers. The kimono is pulled from him and set aside. 

Techno sits behind Phil on the bed, settling in carefully. Phil shudders when Techno's claws touch his feathers. It's been months since he's preened, even longer since he's let someone preen him. He hasn't had nonviolent touch as intimate as this in weeks. Techno hesitates, fingers pausing where they are. But Phil doesn't pull away, only fluffs his feathers out again, and Techno takes the cue. 

Techno preens Phil's wings. He gently rolls each feather side to side in between his fingers, dislodging old and damaged feathers. Phil can feel Techno checking for blood feathers, careful not to tug them because Phil doesn't need to lose blood. Most of Phil's pin feathers are by his shoulders, where his kimono wouldn't rub the waxy coating off. He still has a fair few scattered across his wings, and he can feel Techno pick at the wax until it comes off and the new feather springs free. Techno can't weave the fluff properly. Phil doesn't have the energy to. 

Occasionally, Techno's claws scrape over a scar or a still-healing wound and Phil flinches, wings twitching and scattering feathers all over his bed. There are no murmured apologies like there were in the Antarctic Empire. Instead, Phil can feel Techno's hands give extra attention to the places that make him flinch, rubbing sore muscles and gently massaging out cramps. 

Techno preens Phil for hours. He collects the discarded feathers in two groups, leaving the flight feathers in his lap and setting the downy feathers to his side. The feathers have their uses. Phil will use the down to stuff pillows and line winter clothes. Techno will use the flight feathers for fletching on arrows. At first, Techno had been put off at Phil's willingness to use his own molted feathers for utility. But Phil had called it no different than Techno making a set of paintbrushes using his own hair, and Techno had understood. 

The down feathers are placed in Phil's lap once Techno is finished. Techno's hands linger, and Phil takes the chance to grab them. Techno's hands are very different to Phil's, fingers thick and tipped with claws where Phil's are dainty and thin. But they are no less gentle, no less skilled at preening, no less comforting to hold. 

One of the joints that connects his wings to his shoulders is dislocated. The wing is floppy and useless, and he can't fly with it like that. Dream had demanded he clip his flight feathers regardless. Or, what was left of them. He'll have to clip them again when Dream finds out he molted and has new flight feathers growing in. Clipping doesn't hurt, but he hasn't been able to glide and he fears Dream will make him over-clip the feathers. 

Techno's hands pull from his and he feels one settle on his shoulder and the other grip his dislocated wing gently. It's as much a question as it is an offer. The thought of at least being able to try to save himself should he fall from a great height is too tempting. Phil is a bird, and he craves the sky. Gliding will have to do. He nods, and gasps when his wing is clicked back into place. 

Techno preens the aching joint, after, an apology that Phil understands well. And, with the throbbing pain beginning to ebb and his wings feeling clean for the first time in months, Phil melts into the touch. For the first time since he joined the SMP, he truly relaxes. 

He doesn't cry, but his eyes water. Techno pats his shoulder when he's finished, and Phil looks at his friend. Techno is human-shifted, not smiling but looking at Phil kindly. Phil offers a small smile back. 

"Come on, your bed's covered in feathers and wax," Techno murmurs, gesturing to the discarded pin feather wax and down feathers that are still scattered on the quilt. Phil stands, noting that Techno is already in the thin tunic and leggings he wears to bed. 

Phil can't suppress a shiver at the chilly polar air against his half-bare wings. Techno pulls him across the room and sits him down on his bed. Phil opens his mouth to protest. Techno shushes him. 

"It's the middle of winter. You're molting. You need the warmth," Techno says. Phil doesn't argue. 

He scoots close to the wall. Techno climbs into bed with him, and Phil isn't embarrassed to attach himself to Techno's side. Especially not when Techno pulls him half onto his chest. The piglin runs hot, Nether-born as he is, and Techno had a point when he'd said Phil needed the warmth. Usually his wings kept him cozy through the cold winter nights, but with so many feathers missing, the chill will seep in easier. 

And if tears dampen Techno's tunic where Phil's face is buried in it, neither of them say a thing in the morning. Because he doesn't cry. He's the rock of his family. This is an act of care, this is how Techno tells him he cares for him. He is the rock, but sometimes he knows when to bend.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading. you can find me on tumblr at rubyroboticalt if you wanna scream at me more.


End file.
